FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
FM Talk Outdoors 9-28-2024
It's time to talk about the outdoors in South Alabama, hunting, fishing, and getting outside along the Great Gulf Coast. It's time to take it outside with FMTalk 1065 Outdoors with reports, stories, how-to information, and Dr. Bill's Marine forecast. Here's Sean Sullivan and Mike Ward. All right, now, here we go. FMTalk, one of six five outdoors. Good to see my partner, Mike Ward back in studio from his travels west. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, you, Sean. We'll talk about that also. Yeah, Marine forecast wise too. Well, we didn't get the hurricane here, but the Gulf did, for sure. I used, look at earlier in the week, it was like, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, like 1.3, 1.7, then it went as 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So I get roughed up out there. You know, a friend of mine are calling me like Wednesday night. And we used to talk and he said, "Man, I'm thinking about going fishing Friday. You want to go?" I said, "Man, I can't. I got to go up to the hunting camp. I got a bunch of stuff to do. But you have fun." But I didn't even think about the hurricane. He was full of my leg, but I just didn't even cross my mind that the hurricane was coming because I'm thinking about it. I got to go to the hunting camp, you know? Yeah, you're all in Kansas time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So roughed up out there. Of course, you know, for us, after a storm like that, fishing seems to get better. You know, since you and I have done the show, so a friend of ours in common and I went fishing and went way down the hill, 50-something miles out for us. But the water picking up, this would have been a couple, tomorrow will be two weeks ago. I mean, we weren't, I'd say, 18, 20 miles out. We picked up the next color. Some people call it Navy Blue. Then it gets gray. It's a color before the cobalt. It's not cobalt. It's not real pretty blue. But it said real pretty blue water. And it was in probably 18 miles. Maybe even closer when we picked that up. Maybe even closer when we picked that up. We had flying fish all day, everywhere. Yeah. Like I'm talking about it, 20 miles, 30 miles, 35 miles. Not just like, oh, we just saw some. It was constant. Well, I had a friend of mine, Timmy, he was fishing the rigs right out of Dauphin Island in the bay. The first rig you come to right there, he said, you see 10, 12, 15 foot down. He said water was just absolutely crystal clear just the other day. Now, we hope this doesn't get messed up with runoff coming down the Alabama. Could some of the strain from the storm? But water in the basin there, hope not. Because a lot of us are looking at the causeway too and thinking about fall fishing on the causeway. Did get to go up last week and just kind of looking around. Just a little scout. We're just having fun. But did see shrimp. Didn't really try to catch any trout, caught catfish and bull croakers and reds and that kind of stuff. But didn't really search out the trout yet. But the shrimp are there. The shrimp are there. The shrimp are doing real well in the bay right now. Well, you know, and they give you the pro tip here. When you see the bait shrimpers, just paralleling the Alabama, you go back and forth for the battleship and that run that tells you something. Yep. They are catching, they're doing real good and in a good size. They're 20, 25 count right now. So I'm not sure are they going up the river? Is that what they're doing right now? They're going up the river. Okay. And they have been for a while. But yeah, they're going up the river. We did a whole show. We'll do a show on this again. I just couldn't remember. But right now they're going up the river. And then when it gets cold and fresh water enough, they'll drop back out. Right. Yeah. So they're, I mean, that's, and the fishing, trout fishing has been, you know, a couple, three weeks ago, told you I was fishing middle part of the bay coming out of Dog River, fishing some of the structure out there, having pre-decent trips. Yeah. And I talked to Captain Bobby this last week on Thursday. He talked about had, had good trips. They had like a, you know, they do a multi boat, like there's a bunch of them work together. I think they had seven boats, something like a multi boat trip. And he said, everybody. Because there's always somebody might just not be on every boat had great day, middle of the bay. Man. So that's good news. So the fish are, yeah, the trout are there. It's been a bunch of white trout, but these are speckled trout were there as well. But yeah, and I went up on, it was real pretty. Same thing. I went up as far north of Gravene, you know, and water looked good there. And like I said, the fun to live in where we do, I mean, it's all kind of normal for us. But if somebody was in Birmingham hearing us, in fact, I can sit at one spot on an anchor and catch red fish and catfish at the same time. And that was about saltwater catfish. I'm talking about, you know, channel cats and blue cats. So it's a, it's good, the bass, braille, flounder makes it, makes it great. I didn't get. I thought I was going to catch flounder. We did not catch any flounder. And I didn't set my crab nets out. Yeah. So just so nobody gets confused, you can't run crab traps north of the, of the Bayway causeway. Right. Okay. That's why you always see this trap, pooies, all as far north as they can get. That's right. But not north of there. But you can use, you know, just hook, I mean, just a line with a piece of bait and a dip net. You can use trot line with bait, right? To pick them up off there, you can use crab baskets. I'm using, yeah, you put the basket on there, the baits in there, they get in there, you pull up the basket, yeah, a round basket or a net. Yeah. It's a net with half the metal rings and and crabs crawling there and you go by and check. And it's kind of fun. Sure it is. You know, something that if you have somebody in your family that knuckles sit and wait for a long time for a bite, but it's a fun thing. You got to be quiet. You can just give around, you can go check your, you know, go check the trot line, go check the nets and catch some crabs. So you didn't use them? Did not now get, got to catch those catfishing. So I just go right around. Yeah. Yeah. I left catfish long. I know. I know. I know how you're going to be. So yeah, fishing wise, it does obviously nothing but get better. But I am wondering about the rainfall coming down the Alabama system. Hopefully it won't be knock on wood enough to mess anything up down here. But the, yeah, water clarity was real good. And I could imagine after the angle of Helene coming into the Gulf that when things do lay back down out there, we're going to have a lot of pretty water in close. I would think so. You know, it's going out of North right here here, but you think, but the whole, as it comes up the Gulf, it's pushing that water. That's right. So you're right. I mean, it should be some really pretty water. It's just pretty water out there right now. Yeah. Beautiful water out there right now. So it can't get much prettier, I don't think. And obviously we have go back to several shows ago, but you know, we'll have, we still have Snapper quota. Yeah. So right now, the nice thing is for those going offshore, not now, but when it lays back down, you know, Snapper's open, Trigger's open, Amberjack's open. Yeah, you know, so that's a, when does Amberjack and Trigger go out? I don't know. But it was, I can check that. Listen, by the way, this will give you a chance to plug our favorite app. You remember the name of it, Mike? Fisharoo. Indeed, fish rules. Fisharoo. If you go, I guess we hadn't talked about that in a while too. It's a free app. If you go to, if you're an iPhone user, go to the app store, if you're a, if you're an Android user, you go to the Google Play and it's fish rules. And what's neat about it, sorry, what's neat about it is it takes, when you open up the app, it figures out, you have to like let it know where you are. Right. And it figures out, okay, you're there, what are the regulations there? So not only do you get the federal regs, but you get the whatever state waters. So, you know, here in Alabama, it tells me what, you know, what I can keep and all that. But then if we would travel to Florida, we went to Louisiana or Texas or something like that, you just open it up and it would adjust it for where you are. Right. Which is really neat. Yeah, because I can't hardly, without this, I can't figure out the rules here at home, a little wound if I travel. So, I mean, I was busy the day and somebody in the office asked me, was hammerjack and triggerfish open right now. And I didn't have time to look at the app to see I was doing something, but I said, I don't know. Yeah, they are open. Here's the thing, it's always that when it's a closure going to be, neither of them have listed when the closing date is, but triggerfish and amberjack open. Fish rules app say to you any trouble there. Yeah, check it out there. All right. And yeah, ensure wise, things do nothing but get better plus, you mentioned the bass, we'll have to talk to Captain Wayne Miller here soon. And it's a little early, but about a month from now, I mean, it goes from bass fishing on the cause way to bass catching. He's catching them all the time. He is. I'm talking about for the rest of us. Yeah, but he really starts catching them a lot in about 30 days, probably. When we get to water down the water temperature down, probably about another 12, 15 degrees. Oh, yeah, that'd be. I mean, heck, I think if we got eight or 10, we'd be out in business. Yeah. So we're looking forward to that as well. All right. So we talk a little more fishing on today's show, but I know a lot of what I want to talk about that everyone getting an update because I have not we you'll get to hear Mike and I talk like we're on the phone to each other because I have not talked to you since you got back from Kansas. So so Kansas, you can show me he didn't show me pictures this morning, y'all. And not of keels. No, but of live of live bucks that are, I'm not telling you anything they don't know, gosh, Kansas is a big deer in Kansas. Sorry. You know, you go to Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, whatever. Yeah, it's just it's it's it's it sounds. It's not that it's just one. Here's the thing over and I'm familiar with, you know, like I said, I've sold big deer when I was in Kansas bird hunting all those years, but I wasn't running cameras back then. It's not that it's the one off. It's the numbers of bucks. A lot of bucks. Right. That are that are true trophies. Yeah, it was a lot of them that are the one 35 to one 50 55 somewhere around there. A lot of those bucks. I mean, you just when you flipping through your camera, you just almost don't hardly look at it. Just another 140. Yeah, you know, you just kind of you just just flip on by you looking for that 165 170 180, you know, but that's that's what does it. I think as you have that whole out there, those bucks here that are 105 inches, we're trying to get to 130 those bucks and said that they're they're 135. And now you have a lot more of those bucks that the because not every one of them is going to be a 170 180. But if you have a lot of 130 30 deer, then if you take half of those or a third of those can make the bigger then you got a lot more of those instead of having one that can make 170. That's right. You might have five or six in an area, you know, in a county that can make that. Yeah, I don't care where you go. They're not all going to be monsters. Right. We've talked about on shows that people think if I just let them live long enough and I'm here to tell you I let them live long enough and they just all aren't going to be trophies. That's right. No, they're just not going to be trophies. But like you say, you let enough of them go. Enough of them live and they do in Kansas. I mean, we're hunting a big piece of property up there. I don't know. It's eight to eight to 10,000 acres property up there. There's like nine of us hunting and we can only kill one buck piece off of that. And I think and only if y'all get drawn. Yeah, that's only if we get drawn. So this year's only six people getting drawn and probably not all six are going to kill him there. And he's got got a lot of up and comers and a lot of giants come back up more of that talk with Mike. Also look forward to it's not going to be too long until getting up a tree and bow hunt in here at home. So we've got that to talk about and teal season ending this weekend as well. Formula looks right for good teal hunt. We'll talk about that when we come back. All right, welcome back. FM talk one of six five outdoors Sean Sullivan, Mike Ward. Glad to have you along with us. Yeah, we're talking during the break too. I know we mentioned earlier, we mentioned the Hurricane Helene a little bit about what's going to do. Maybe shake things up, get fishing good in the Gulf when it lays down. But also thinking about that area over there. And I haven't spent time. I haven't spent time pretty recently just over their scalloping. That's wrong. If you get if you go past when you get like past destined and all that, which I'm not actually not super familiar here and tell you I've never been destined in my life. I've never been to destined in my life. Never been there. You are kidding me. No, because if I don't here's my in this discussion I've had with people and stuff. If I'm going to leave home Dolphin Island, Mobile Bay, and not go west for fishing. But if I'm going to go east, I'm going to get to somewhere that it's significantly different than where I live. And so you get past destined, you start getting, because you know, I like to snorkel and spear do that. You get clearer water as you go further east and different kind of environment over there. You know, as you start going, you start going, Port St. Joe, Appalachia, Cola, get over there to St. Marks, Carabell. It's just different, right? To me, it's worth, I have nothing against destined. But I'm like, if I'm going to drive that far, I'm going to drive another hour and a half or two. And so what I was getting at though, is if you drive in that area, I know so many of y'all have, you get off of I-10. Let's say you're going down those places. There's a little bit of a hills, really, fright when you get off I-10. But you get another 10 miles down the road south. Y'all, it is, I mean, it's flat. It is. It is flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. Going down there, you know, here at home, people who don't know art topography, you'll hear, you know, coming with the weather channel or whatever, they'll be like, oh, if the storm surge is this, it'll go this far in. You're like, no, not really, because there's a ridge here, and that, you know, we're not flat. We're not Louisiana. We're not, but that down there, that water goes up. I mean, I'd be seeing the pictures, the picture of how far it goes in. But if you get 15 or 20 foot of storm surge, I can't even imagine that down there. What that- I mean, how far in that is. Yeah. I can't imagine. I guess we saw some of it in Katrina, on the Mississippi coast, which is, got a lot of that flat. You get diamond head and all that stuff over there, pretty flat. And it went, storm surge from Katrina went way inland there. Yeah. I mean, there's people that, their houses aren't on pilings. They're just sitting on the ground. This never had any issue with flooding ever in their entire life. They've been there. Yeah. They're getting ready to have some problems. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, just watching that over there. And, you know, we talked about this on the midday show. But if y'all are hearing us on this morning, next week, if you're doing relief efforts with church or community group or whatever, just getting in touch with us at the station, the way we can help is we can get the word out if you're, you know, drop off points and those kind of things to help the people down there. We're all on board. All right. So we're talking about Kansas. You're back from Kansas. And I've never- You did not hunt. You went out there. So Mike drives. Okay. Here's the thing. Here's about my friend. He drives. How far is it to drive? How long does it take you? Well, it's 900. I mean, 900 miles. So it's 14, 14 and a half hours. So he drives 14 and a half hours to work. Yep. At the lease out there. You know, it's funny. There's a boy out there that got to meet that's in the club with his lives up at Lake Martin. Okay. And anyway, he was out there on vacation hunting with a muzzle loader. Mm-hmm. Now he had an opportunity on a really big one, but it didn't work out for him. Yeah, you were showing me that picture of that bug. Yeah. By 75 yards, had his muzzle loader on him. And you can use muzzle loader and bow right now at the same time. And he had the muzzle loader crosshairs on him, 75 yards coming to him, and he said, "Well, I'm just going to okay one more time with the binoculars. Let me tell you, don't ever do that because soon as he picked his binoculars up, that deer, and it was a big deer, they got long strides. They just, he just easily just walked in the woods. He was right coming down right beside a bean field and woods right beside it. And he just turned and leisurely walked in the woods. Didn't see him or anything. He was right at the crack of daylight. And anyway, he missed an opportunity on a really, really fine bug. So this don't ever do it. You got your crosshairs on one and he's coming to you, keep the crosshairs on him. Yeah. And be ready to pull trigger. Now, this wouldn't have worked because there's a wide open, the picture I saw wide open on one side in the woods. You had to be in front of the woods, but you might need to bring the preach the gospel in Kansas about the blue bucket. You know, my road hunt, my road hunt taken where I put the bucket on the road so the deer will stop and look at the bucket. That's right. Well, we had corn out, you know, so he just talked about it. That's better than the bucket. Yeah. That's it's corn in a bucket. Well, it was those in the corn pile. So it does end corn? Yeah. So he thought for sure that buck was just coming straight on. I can't blame him. I thought the same thing. Yeah, absolutely. But anyway, he's on vacation and he said he will never go on vacation with me again. I like to work him to do it. Yeah. So drive a distance and then this man on vacation to just be put into the labor camp of Mike Ward. Yeah. What do you all do out there? Because it's not like, you know, you're not planting green fields out there. What do you do? It's the same thing you do here. You're putting feeders out. You're putting stands out. You trim and limbs. You trim and bushes. You're, you know, cutting with a grass is, you know, a two foot tall or three foot tall where it's waving. You use a weed eater to to cut that down so your camera's not going off every, you know, 30 seconds or whatever. I mean, the same thing we do here, just getting ready for the hunt. You got another, you got some more miles in your truck you need to burn. Because I got, you know, we talk about this and we probably could revisit this on a show. Like each year I usually do a camera breakdown because I'm such a fool. You know, I've been, cellular cameras have been a thing for me. I was an early adopter and I run a bunch of them. But I've got three up in Pennsylvania where I hunt. Yeah. And one of them, I had set perfectly. It's on the side of a real pretty heavy ridge, but in the mountains, but the where the trails are pretty defined because they come up and they switch back across it. And I said it and it was perfect before I left up there. It's been back in August. Yeah. And a squirrel has jumped on this joker. Okay. I guarantee you that's what it happens. Squirrels jumped on. Now it's not looking down the trail. It's looking off somewhere else at an angle that makes you dizzy looking at it. Now I am 1100 miles away and can't fix that. So if you need to burn some gas, come on. I got two of them the same way. I've got them all set last week. Everything's perfect. They on the field got got them on T post. You know, and I got T post mount. I bought that. I went ahead and paid extra to get the T post mount and got them all set up. Perfect. Well, I see this deer coming right in my camera looking at it and the next picture, the camera is off looking at the woods. You know, and another one, basically the same thing. I mean, looking at a soybean field with some corn and all that out in it. And the next picture is one. Now it's looking at the woods again. And now it's easy. And here we are. We're, you know, 900 miles away. And what do you do? Right. When you're when you're 30 miles from your hunting camp, it's not a big deal. That's right. You're 900 miles away. It's a big deal. Listen, I've gone through and I don't have any feed out. So before anybody asked, but I lost two antennas now in the last two weeks. From what? Bears eating it. Like eating, they've decided, I've had coyote pups do it before to eat the antennas on my cutting links, but I've had bears. They don't in mobile or mobile. Yeah. Here. Okay. Here. Here. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Eating the antennas or just biting. One of them they got after the other one just got bite marks on it. But it's all bent. It looks, you know, kicked off at a 45 degree angle. So I have to make the call to cutting link to get new. I don't know why they want the antenna. It's kind of got that rubberized plastic around it. Maybe it's fun to chew. Like I said, if I had coyote pups, do I had coyote pups do that and eat through the cord that connects my solar to my battery? Because I run a lot of them on a solar panel like into to run the camera. They thought that was fun to chew through. I was like, I hope you get a shock. Yeah. But that is aggravating. It's easier because I live on the property and I can go fix it. But yeah, it's a different when you're in Kansas or Pennsylvania. I don't have as many cameras you do, but I did buy 12. Okay. You're moving on up, Mike. Yeah, I am. Okay. I'm gonna get four more for us all over with. So I'll have 16. How are you talking going? But I mean, you know, you just got them in different places. And what you're doing when you go to Kansas is you're just trying to find where a big buck lives. And right now, y'all are hunting right now, the guys are hunting out there and they've got it. You're hunting food. That's right. Because rut is not in. That's right. You're just hunting food right now. They just, this lost their velvet. So they're hard horns now. They say all of them I've seen now are hard horns. So you just you're hunting bait. But what it tells me is just there's a good one around. Even when they're not coming to the bait, it gives me an idea. At least I can go hunt around there and have a chance at this 165 or 180 or whatever. Y'all, he's got some giants on there. Yeah. You know, so it just gives you some hope that there's some deer there. So the more cameras you have, just like you got, I mean, it's your place. I mean, I wouldn't dare try to use bathroom, but you're like always ask, hey, can I get the restroom here? I'm like, yeah, sure. No, you go down right around that corner. I don't have a camera, you know. You know what's interesting though on camera right now for me at home. And something we've talked about before, I think I brought it up with Chuck Sykes and maybe we'll get the deer coordinator on the biologist on here. Something I've seen on my property, I'd love to hear from y'all maybe on the Facebook page if you see this. I was showing you a picture of that buck the other day. Right. It got nice book. Nice book. I hadn't seen him at all. Yeah. Every year I get while they're getting ready to shed velvet. I get bucks come on my property. I get on camera that I don't then see again. You know, maybe we've seen one during the rut maybe and it's this movement. I look and I know this happens out west because going to hunt mule deer out there, I've watched patterns and guys I talked to that they these these groups of bucks will abandon a canyon they've been in, go to another area as they shed velvet and I don't know if they feel they feel exposed or whatever. And then they come and then they come back to that same canyon, but they leave for that period. I see bucks and sometimes with the better bucks I see in a year, I see these bucks show up and then once they're hard horned, once the velvet's off, don't see them. Yeah. And they're, you know, they're what is about their territory too. Right. You know, they come in there. The bucks start splitting up. I've seen that too where I mean we were getting pictures when they were in velvet that'd be sometimes six or eight or so. And I still have those great, you know, I got yeah. Once I see regular, I mean, I know them, you know, I've been watching them forever. Right. But then I get this new group of bucks. It's happened that happens. I think it happens every year that I can remember. We'll get these bucks on camera and they're in there and then by the time November comes or sometime in between there, they never see them again. Yeah. I know we're getting ready to go to a commercial break, but we'll talk when we come back. You got a theory? Maybe. Okay. All right. Coming right back. More of FM Talk. One of six five outdoors. All right. This is good because, uh, oh, welcome back FM Talk. One of six five outdoors. Professor Ward's going to help me here. Well, I don't know. I want it because this and I don't know. I'd love to hear from y'all if anybody has this experience who got to run cameras now. Difference is a lot of people, although they'd be running for both season, but I'll run cameras 52 weeks a year. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. And I've seen this quite a few times. I got it. It doesn't. I got the regular knuckleheads, the bucks that, you know, you see all the time and I don't feed this time of year. So I'm not looking at a feed bomb. Just look at trails and crossing. Right. But you do have food. I mean, you have food, not corn and all that stuff, but you got food. Oh, in my woods. Yeah. But don't you have some stuff planted? Oh, yeah, I got, I got that. But I got a, I guess planted. Now, yeah, down by the house, um, yeah, in the pastures by the house, I got some stuff planted, but I'm talking about, I got food in the woods because the Forbes not to go complete nerd on y'all, but you know, I burn and do all that. Right. So you get a pretty good flush of, of, of Forbes coming in this time of year. So flowers. Right. Coming in this time of year, they will flat, graze those babies down. Yeah. So they definitely eaten those. And that may be part of this explanation, but, um, but we're talking about is, I got a regular tier, but it's like every year, this time of year, September, early September, going into a little bit in October, I get, and sometimes it's the better bucks I see in a year. I got bucks on me, and then they disappear. Well, I think maybe they're, maybe it's always while they're in velvet or just shedding it. But maybe what's happening, John, is a lot of people like you, I don't want to put corn out or start. I don't want, I don't care anything about deer being in velvet and looking at deer and velvet. I personally don't care about that. Right. And I'm not getting ready to hunt right now. I mean, we still got, I'm not bow hunting on my place here in Alabama. So I'm waiting to, you know, mid October or so for why he put cameras out. But were those people feet, but were they feeding in June, July and they, if they're feeding protein, they should have been feeding in April, April, April, May, June. But what, what did they, I mean, they're not feeding at all, and I'm not feeding at all. Why do they show up on me when they're in velvet and then disappear? I don't know, but maybe they're just maybe in October, they start feeding again. And then they, and I'll probably leave you. And I'll start feeding right there going into Halloween. Yeah, I'll start feeding. Yeah. But that's late October. Yeah. You know, so. Maybe that's just feet early. And it could be because I know in Kansas, you know, we had one spot we was feeding and I'm telling you we had so many bucks coming to it. There's unbelievable, you know, there'd be a group of six or eight come and then it'd be two or three and then it'd be another two or three and I mean just a bunch of different bucks come to this spot. And then all of a sudden it's like, what happened to all those deer? They're gone. Just occasional buck comes now. But what happened was they're cutting corn. That all that fresh corn laying on the ground. They're cutting corn now. So all these corn fields up there, the deer are flooding to it. And they're going to be getting ready to cut soybeans probably within the next, some places they might be getting ready to start now. But in the next 30 to 45 days, they're going to be cutting soybeans. That's going to be another game changer where they're living in the soybeans right now. I mean, they're literally in the corn fields. Yeah, a lot of them are living in that right now. And when they cut all that, everything changes. I mean, whole world changes up there because you got soybean fields, corn fields, you can't see anything. It's so thick. You can't see the ones hardly for all the and then when they cut all that, you can see for a mile, you know. So everything's getting ready to change up there. Yeah, it shuffles them around. Then you put that where you're hunting right into the rut coming here in the beginning of November. That's right. Yeah. So food. And that's all they live for besides rut. The other thing about 15 days. Yeah, you know, for me, I don't know. We'll keep studying this because we have, you know, I pay attention to the food we got. Well, the place I spend most of my, you know, if I get home in time before it's dark from this radio station, you know, I get, I spend my time in the woods looking what's up. So I got, I don't know, they have more. I got plenty of forbs now, but I probably had those also end in July and August. So I don't know. Well, it's a mystery to find out. Maybe I can keep them on there. Also speaking of this, both season right around the corner and a quick reminder to, you know, we've talked about this in the past. It's a bucks only for us in, where do we zone B? Yeah, I think we're zone B, you know, first 10 days. So reminder there. And I've got pretty, I think the rut was pretty good. Most of my fawns look about the same size. So I feel good about that, you know, that they were, you know, dropped early enough. But you know, you know, I've talked about this so many times that dough can come out and you say, well, she's a, what do I always say? I have dried dough, made dough, no, no fawn. Maybe not. That's right. And that's the point of that 10 days. And I would even argue, if you're trying to do the best, I would wait on end of November, shoot those because that fawn made back in the woods and you shoot that dough, you've killed that fawn too. That's right. Yeah. So I agree with you. You just need to be careful. And you know, a lot of people don't realize that the first 10 days you can't kill the dough. People just don't think about that. They think, well, I don't know any time. Remember the logic behind it is what got us to move to closing not the end of January, but February 10th was the mean rut, the spike of the rut. And realizing that the rut came in later in a lot of areas in Zone B. So they moved it later. Well, okay. So that is true. So therefore those those aren't bread until later, the fawns drop later. So they're still needing momma big time, maybe where, you know, a deer that run it in November, that fawns okay by October, but a deer that run it in February or March, that fawns way behind and still needs mama in October. Every year, I see spotted fawns in January. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, I've shown you pictures of you're in the black belt. I'm in the black belt. Every year, I see spotted fawns in January. You know what the deer biologist says? You got too many does, Mr. Ward. Well, I may have. Yeah. I probably do. Yeah. I think we all do. Yeah. I just don't shoot them. I don't eat them. Right. Yeah. I just don't care for it. Now, if you cooked it, I came with your house and you had it. I'd eat it, which is pretty much what you eat at my house. Yeah. But my wife is fishing and I'm not going to fool with it. So I just don't don't. Right. So I'm not going to. Yeah, you're there to hunt bucks. Yeah, I'm just, there's a cute bucks, which I hadn't killed in a very long time. I think you're going, I think I don't know what you're going to do in Alabama this year. I feel you, but I think you're going to get one of these monsters in Kansas. I'm feeling it. Well, I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, they're there to be killed. So now I'm going to spend some time out there. I'm going to spend more time out there probably hunting than I do in Alabama. Well, I'm sure I am. And what I also talk about with both season coming up, something that you gave me a crash course in. I mean, I'm familiar with them. It's not like I don't know what they are, but I've never been a crossbow here. Right. And last year or year before, when you first got that first guy crossbow, it was two years ago, two years ago, two years ago, y'all. And then we talked a couple of weeks ago about the parallax sighting, where it takes into account that it figures out the range and puts the crosshairs where it's supposed to be. That's right. These are pretty awesome machines here. I've studied up since you and I talk. Yeah. Burse makes it and also Garmin makes one. Burse is what I've got one for my grandson, Dylan, on his compound bow. Now, I haven't gotten mine yet for the crossbow. They ran out of them at the factory. And I've been talking to the boy at the factory and he's, well, as a matter of fact, they're supposed to come in yesterday. I hadn't checked with them today to see. But anyway, I should be getting mine from my crossbow here soon. But it is great. I mean, you see a deer out there and you don't know whether he's 30 yards, 40 yards, 45 yards, where you just throw your bow up. Your range finder and your site are incorporated into one unit here. Instead of having to range, put down the range finder, get the right selection on this. And the deer's moving. Yeah. You know, here you can pull your bow out. I ain't pull your... You do with your bow or... Yeah. You pull your air back, be ready. And as soon as you get an opportunity, you push a button and it tells you 33 yards. And it tells you exactly where to put your crosshair on the deer. So, I mean, it takes the guesswork out of it, you know? So, I think it's awesome. I think it's going to help not wound as many deer. It should. Absolutely. It should help that. Absolutely. So, I mean, I'll take all the help I can get not to not wound a deer. Yeah. I mean, it's real interesting to me because like, you know, you and I are like bookends on this because I shoot a wooden long boat, you know? But also, there are some years, this might be one of them with stuff I got going on that I won't bow hunt if I don't... I have to shoot so much to feel... Now, I'm a good instinctive shooter, but there's a difference between, you know, I have to be really informed before I bow hunt with it. That's right. I got to have time way before bow season and I grew up shooting compound bows. I've shot every kind of bow. I'm not having nothing against wheel bows. I'm probably going to get another one, but it's something that it takes even maybe more... It takes more practice than shooting a compound. Well, absolutely it does. And as I get, as time's gone on, decades gone on, and less time out there, I'll tell you something like these crossbows you're shooting that you... I mean, you still need to shoot them and know what you're doing, but you don't have to go shoot every day. That's right. Well, the other thing too is, I mean, you know, my shoulder, I've got a shoulder that it's not great, my right shoulder, and it hurts a little bit when I pull a compound bow back. And the last thing you want is being a tree and go to pull back and get to hurt. And so, you know, for me, the compound bow just makes sense. I've always used recur bows. I mean, compound bows, but the crossbow, you say, makes sense now. Yeah, it makes sense for me now. So that's what I went with. And they're... I mean, it's amazing. Like I said, since you started talking about them more and I started studying, these things are amazingly efficient. Oh, they are. I mean, you shoot a deer, they say up to 100 yards with the crossbow. Which to me is like anything, just cut it in half. So, I mean, I always talk about that with TSS. Yeah. Right, so we both shoot TSS turkey hunting. For me, what it did is I actually went down and engaged size. You know, I shoot. Me too. I went from 12 gauge to 20 gauge. So now I'm just carrying something lighter. You can shoot a turkey way out there. I don't want to. I want to get them closer. But the same thing here, if I know that that crossbow can deliver at 100 yards, then I feel good at 50. 50, 60 yards. You get it done. Really good. And that's why me too. Yeah. I'm not saying that I'm going to shoot one. But they can. But that's, you know, the fact they can is not, then I'm going to try to shoot 100 yards. It would just make me feel like so confident. That's right. 50, 60 yards. He's dead. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, you know, I'm excited about shooting a compound. Yeah. You're going to get me to add something else to the arsenal here. Yeah. Done, done in my feather fletions and my wood bows. They spend money. Keep it up, Ward. Keep it up. All right. Coming right back. More of FM Talk. What are the six 5 outdoors? By the way, too, we should have celebrated this at the beginning of the show. But let me celebrate today. Today is the 52nd, 52nd annual National Hunting and Fishing Day. You're going to know that? Yeah. There you go. So that means today we hunt and fish. And we hunt for it. It says, this thing on the Facebook page for wildlife and freshwater fisheries, of course, it's how the state works. Got a picture of Governor Ivy signing something here. It says Saturday, Saturday 52nd annual National Hunting and Fishing Day, Governor K. Ivy signed a Proclamation. Oh, big time. It means you got to have a fancy feather, turkey feather quill pen, signed a Proclamation celebrating this date, which is meant to highlight the vital role that hunting, fishing, and shooting sports play and conservation efforts in the United States. Here's the, here's what she wrote. I take, I'm not going to do my Ivy voice. I take great pride in honoring our hunters and anglers with this proclamation. The abundant fish and wildlife we enjoyed today in Alabama would not be possible without hunters and anglers. I thank them for their continued support for conservation and their stewardship of public lands and quotes. So there you go. Okay. So, you know, we have a fishing day and anybody can go fishing for free that day. You don't have a license now. That's in June, usually, I think. But yeah, thanks. So, but anyway, is that the way it is with the national, with the hunting? I did not read that. No, I do not think it is. I think it's just proclamation stuff. Fancy, fancy government stuff. Yeah, it makes no difference for me. We got a license now, but it might, would make a difference. Somebody who don't have a license. Yeah, well, somebody today could be out. They could, but then no, you do, it does not say you don't have to have a license. Well, and what you're going to hunt right now anyway. Doves and two. Yeah. And I can't wait to hear the reports here. And hopefully, I'll be adding mine to the mix as well. The last weekend of blueing teal season. So hopefully, we'll have some good reports by next week on that. Have you been? Not been. But I'm going to go tomorrow. We'll get it done. We're going to get it done. Last day, coming into the wire, speaking of birds too. I don't want to do this. You know, I do this because it was Wednesday that people found out about Sandhill Crane, if you got a tag, or got tags or not. And I was, my phone was ringing. It was funny. I was over at WKRG on Wednesday doing a thing for St. Jude, which big shout out to Web Jackson and Joy Life on the Gulf Coast. St. Jude, a thing we involve ourselves with a lot here. And I believe so much in what they do. But as you want to think over there, my phone's ringing. I'm on TV. You turn your ringers off. And it's a bunch of other people got drawn for crane tags. Well, where do we go? Where do we go? Listen, you could tell this is a new thing in the state when the guy that went one year, I'm now like the expert in it. I'm like, y'all, I just went the one time. But I got drawn again. You did. I did. So I've been working. I said, before I tell you anything, I'm working to lock in where I'm hunting. Yeah. So yeah, I got. Hey, you go has buddies wanting to go with you. Yes. And I've listened. We'll see. Everybody was my buddy yesterday when they're like, hey, man, how do you do it? I'm like, guys, I really don't know. I went to this place. We got in a pit blind. The cranes flew over and I shot them. That's as much as I know. Very simple to me. Yeah, it's real simple. But yeah, I'm excited about doing that again. Yeah. So those were out those and so if you didn't, if you'd put them for the lottery and you didn't hear, well, wah, wah, wah, wah. Yeah. So you would have heard Wednesday. Wednesday. Yeah. Okay. Check your emails. Yeah. Somebody that doesn't check. You've been drawn two years in a row and you've been trying to get out. I'll get a tag since 1974. Yeah. Yeah, I said something to a friend of ours in common. On Wednesday, I said, well, hell, I can't get drawn for a gator tag at home. I've only guided, you know, seven different hundreds over the years to Gators and done all this stuff. I can't get my own tag. But I can get two years of Sandhill Crane, which I love. I'm fired up. Hey, that's great. Absolutely. Which I remind her to start looking now. Some of the hunts are open, but I guess in this next month you'll go to outdooralabama.com for this special opportunity areas, the SOAs, those hunts, putting your name in for the hunts at Portland Landing, Cedar Creek, Uchi, missing some of them here. The Stimson Reserve, these hunts, the lotteries will be up for those. I can't use lottery in the state. The chance to be drawn. There you go. It's just so funny how people are in the state. You can't say lottery. Whatever it is. You put your name in there and you might get drawn. Yeah. Whatever that thing is. And when it, how long do you have? They should. They should be. I have not checked it as of now. They weren't as of Wednesday when I went on because you have to go to the same page to validate that you want your crane permits. Those hunts were not live yet. But it could happen. I would say, I think I remember it usually happened in October. So I'm checking that. They give you how long to. It's a couple weeks, I think, once it opens. Yeah. And it's one of these where you put in, you got to spend some time on the computer because you got to say what we can't, you know, what they'll have like two and three day windows. Yeah. Which ones do you want? That doesn't mean which one you'll get. But you put the ones you want. Don't put in for something with, you know, if you got to go to grandma's house that way, you don't put that in or you know you're going to be traveling. Yeah. You find the times you can be available. But there's something we've talked about on for years. It's hats off to the folks. Chuck and Keith and everybody with wildlife and freshwater fisheries. The experience you get on these special opportunity areas is better than you probably would get in a hunting lease. Yeah. The prime properties, low pressure, you know, great management going on in the deer. I know you've been but I've talked to several friends that have done that and they loved it. They just like you. They signed up for it every year. You know, I always fear to say anything but I'm going to be honest with you all instead of being selfish. Yeah. Got drawn second year maybe of the SOA at Cedar Creek for a turkey hunt. And we're standing there first like came a buddy in our hunting and I think they weren't all in our they give you zones like you're in the hunting camp. You sign out for and they were like six now 800 acre blocks. They had for turkey hunters. They, you know, broken this. That's a lot broken up. Yeah, maybe six or 800 or something like that that you got that was your unit. You have a map and that you but so all the turkeys weren't in that one unit. But we had heard I think in five minutes after daylight, we heard 16 different gobblers. That's a bunch of gobblers. I mean, it was yeah, it was stellar. So and I don't know what it's you know, the turkey hunts like there. But I know the reports out I've not been drawing for the deer hunts yet. But I have friends that have and they've had I mean Portland landing. If y'all like me, you should go to Mike Ward's store when you're kids and ride your bicycle up there and rent the VHS tapes of Mossy Oak in the early days. That's where they were hunting. That's right. And I mean, I used to watch those things like a man, if I could ever be in a place like that, you can. Back then they killed some monster deer. Yeah, Portland. So that's one of the places you can hunt. So if you're, you know, even if you had somewhere to hunt, but you just wanted to do it for the nostalgia, like me who used to watch those VHS tapes, Portland, it's wonderful. You get to hunt there if you get drawn. And the state does a great job, man. For good. They plan it. They plan it for, you know, antler restrictions, all that. So you get a chance of the monster. That's some good stuff. We'll do it all again next week. This is FMTalk 10065 Outdoors. Check us out online. You can check the podcast out by going to our website or anywhere you get your podcast. Also drop some comments on the Facebook page. It's facebook.com/fmtalk10065 Outdoors.